


Eternal Mortshine of the Rickless Mind

by dimeforadance



Category: Rick and Morty
Genre: 'cause we're gonna need it broh!, Addiction, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Anal Fingering, Anal Play, Anal Sex, Angry Sex, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Citadel of Ricks, Dark, Dark Humor, Denial of Feelings, Dirty Talk, Drama, Drug Abuse, Dubious Consent, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Family Therapy, First Kiss, First Time, Fluff, Gaslighting, Gonna add tags as I go, Guilt, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, I'm very slow and trying my best, Incest, Internal Conflict, Light BDSM, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Mystery, Nipple Play, Oral Sex, Plot, Praise Kink, Psychological Drama, Rape/Non-con Elements, Recovered Memories, Regret, Romance, Rough Sex, Science Fiction, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Hatred, Sex, Sexy... sex, Smut, Spanking, Suicidal Thoughts, Tender Sex, Underage Drinking, Underage Sex, Unreliable Narrator, Your Average Sex, going to hell yadda yadda, just a-- just a whole lotta sex, mind blowing, morty's mind blowers, mortytown, obviously, s... stuff, sad sex, the creepy morty, ugh Jerry's here
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:48:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26966206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dimeforadance/pseuds/dimeforadance
Summary: The first signs are like WebMD.And Morty’s only fourteen.
Relationships: Rick Sanchez/Morty Smith
Comments: 4
Kudos: 37





	1. Forward

Don't think about it.


	2. Prologue

Rick says starting things with poetry is pandering.

Anyway, fuck Rick.

Crowd-pleasers are crowd-pleasers. So Morty doesn’t see what the problem is. All he wants is to please people. Okay, no, not like— that sounds pathetic. That’s not what he means. All he means is, lyrics are pleasing. He likes music in a way he didn’t before. Like, it used to just be for fun. Now he’s really listening. Like, he’s tapping his foot without thinking to, without forcing it. Like he’s not trying to be cool, you know? He’s tapping his foot alone in his room. The music is cool. _He_ doesn’t have to be cool. It’s like it means something now, especially the words. It’s like it’s new.

It’s like:

Mom gives Morty glimpses when she’s washed in wine. She’ll grin, get on her knees and sort past the DVDs. Way back into the cabinet where she finds the eight VHS tapes lined up like chunky black tombstones. Wishing for a ninth. They’re labeled, and a handwritten guide always folds out dogeared in her clumsy hands. Several sheets of collated computer paper with numbers and names on them.

 _Artists_ , Mom always says.

She says, it’s like:

 _We watched_ MTV _, all night. And_ VH1 _. Oh,_ Night Flight _! Oh, Morty,_ Night Flight _! The best. The best videos, they all— had the best videos. That was_ USA _, I think. Your grandfather and I, we’d stay up late, and he’d tape all his favorites. But it was an art. You had to— to know how the videos started. I mean, you had to know how the very first second started so you could hit "record’" in time to get the whole thing— recorded. So if you saw a video you liked, you had to wait a while to… learn it. Learn how it started. The opening notes, and— you know, what you first saw. Once you had it down, you waited. And you caught it. Like a fish! I mean, Dad never took me_ fishing _. I wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t know what a fish is… Space Fish, maybe— but that was our… our fishing, Morty. We’d catch fish. And we’d mount them on tapes. It was a sport. It was an art!_

_But Dad called it science._

She gets teary at this point. Usually drunk enough to forget Morty has all this memorized. He probably should feel bad that he likes his Mom better when she’s grape-stained. He probably shouldn’t feel good that she loves him more like this.

 _He likes music_ , she’ll smile. _He’s in a band._

Morty wants to watch music videos with his Mom, the way she did with her dad. He tries to ask her, drops hints, makes weird stuttering suggestions with a nervous smile and a hand so-not-confident on his hip. _Hah-hah!_ What does it say, that he’s awkward with his own mother?

 _Oh,_ she huffs, blows a short raspberry, shrugging her coat off after too many equine emergencies. She doesn’t remember her easy drunk cheer. _Good luck with that. It’s all —_ she claws air-quote _s — “Real Housewifes of Daddy Issues” now. Maybe. Is that_ MTV _now_ _? I can’t remember. No more music videos, anyway. Is your sister home? I got a rotisserie chicken. I know I said I'd make something, but.  
_

Morty googles "Daddy Issues". What if they’re inherited?

He’s never even met him. He’s met him in photos, okay, yeah, but that’s it. A couple snaps of Morty crying, one of him grinning before he knew the pain of wiggly teeth. That one was taken on his second birthday, Mom says. She says he dropped icing on the family cat from his high chair. She says Grandpa laughed. She says they had a family cat.

It’s pretty stupid that you can’t remember the stuff from when you were really little, Morty thinks, because that’s probably the only time you’re ever really happy. Except for when you’re crying like a little baby. Because… you’re a little baby. Morty snorts, kinda laughs. _Dumb_. Summer’s been accusing him of being suuuuuuuuch an emo little cumstain lately. Mom hears her say that one night and barks her distaste.

 _What?_ defends Summer, toothbrush lazy as a toothpick in a corner of her mouth. _He_ is _. Like, do you_ not _do laundry, Mom?_

 _Summer! Gross!_ Mom shouts.

Morty burns so hot and so red. He balls his fists and can’t make eye contact with anyone but the carpet. He mirrors his Mom:

_G-gross, Summer! Y— y-y-you’re just— gross!_

Summer shrugs, slinking back into the bathroom. _I’m just speaking, like, my_ truth _. God._ She spits into the sink _. I thought this was supposed to be, like, a nurturing en-vi-ron-ment. Obviously you and Dad never read Mister Spock._

Their Mom goes unimpressed and all hands-on-her-hips.

Doctor _Spock. We get it, you’re taking Psychology._

 _Ugh_. Summer spits again and runs her purple toothbrush under the tap. _It’s for college credit, Mom. I’m gonna be a psychologist. Sorry I’m not gonna be a_ horse _psychologist._

Morty expects Summer to slam the bathroom door, but Mom does it for her.

_Morty—_

_I know._

He keeps his head to the floor and snicks his door shut quietly.

I know. Whatever that’s supposed to mean. He guesses he knows he’s… gross. And, and— moody. And he— well, yeah, he knows pretty much all he does is jerk off. So yeah, maybe Summer’s right, maybe he should find some friends to find an excuse to go to the mall. To go someplace called Hot Topic.

 _Maybe they have a_ Cure _t-shirt,_ she teases.

That’s private.

Morty can’t record things the way Mom and Grandpa did. Mom has showed him the little red button on the dead remote, the one you’d sink your thumb into when the right song hit you.

All Morty’s got is YouTube. That’s alright, though. He types in “the cure” and finds a handful of the videos he’s seen on the tapes. He comes across an unfamiliar one.

The creepy-looking dude is like, really old in it. _Y-yikes_ , Morty says out loud. It’s kind of a weird stop-motion thing. It’s kinda dumb, the video, but Morty thinks he likes the song. Yeah, it’s good. He does like it. Maybe the video's not so dumb, either. Maybe it's great.

Yeah. Okay.

He’s— he’s got good taste!

Cool.

Rick, when Morty meets him, does not like music. He is not in a band.

He sleeps in the laundry room, so now the washer and dryer sleep in the garage. But sometimes Rick sleeps in there, too. He’s got two rooms, suddenly. Morty’s Dad grouses that soon he’ll take on a third. Maybe he already has, because Morty feels like he has to ask permission to sit on the couch when Rick’s sprawled across it.

 _Well he’s not setting foot in_ Chateau Jerrí _, I can tell you that… I mean it. I will put_ my _foot down._

_Jerry, just call it your Man Cave and let us all come to terms with it in our own time._

_Not before_ I _come to terms with it in_ my _own time, Beth!_ He points an emphatic finger down at the floor he doesn’t pay the mortgage for. _I wouldn’t need a Man Ca— an escape if your alco— if your father hadn’t decided to drop in for a “quick visit”!_

Morty’s mother loves a man who left.

Makes him wonder why Dad doesn’t just pack his things.

Rick doesn’t talk a whole lot until about the third month. Suddenly, he gets real chatty. He gets more drunk.

Morty’s rinsing out Snuffles’ water bowl one morning before school, rubbing at the calcium ring with his thumbs when Rick comes up behind him and scares the holy shit out of him.

 _Are you going to_ school _?_

 _Uhhm—_ The water bowl has clattered into the sink with an embarrassingly loud noise.

Morty swivels awkwardly, backpack grazing Rick in the process; he braces himself for the abuse he increasingly hears laid upon his father, but it doesn’t come. Instead, Rick just flattens his gaze and flicks one strap of Morty’s pack with a middle finger.

_School’s dumb. You’re not dumb, are you Morty?_

To Morty’s knowledge, he’s not. To his knowledge, this is the first time Rick has said his name.

 _Uhh— aww, jeez, I—_ He rubs at the nape of his neck, dog water getting into the hair he didn’t wash this morning. _Uhhm—_

Rick grabs his flask out from his heart, and that’s how Morty knows his Grandpa’s been up all night. He knows now that Rick has always been up all night. He always looks so sallow and sick. The hours he hasn’t slept drip down his chin, and Morty begins to feel, well. Not so scared. He feels, well. Kinda just… sad.

_W—what are you doing after school?_

_Oh. Uh. I- I don’t know._ That’s not true. Morty knows he’s staying late for tutoring. Which means he’s doodling mindless shapes on graph paper for two hours while his teacher sleep-talks into his tenured desk and a couple of eighth-graders mack in the back. 

Rick sways and catches himself with one hand on the lip of the sink; a heavy palm clips a tiny pinky, and Morty withdraws and yelps.

Rick doesn’t even notice. His eyes aren’t there.

 _Y-you’re helping me,_ he says. _What— what time do you get out. How— a-are you in, daycare, or is— i-it’s hard to tell, I-I-I mean, I don’t really know and I don’t—_ he belches loudly _— giHIIVVhhve a shit, so— so what, do I pick you up, or do— do you drive, or what?_

Morty feels surprisingly angry. He feels like he wants to say a lot of things, but none of those things comes to mind.

So, _uh, we get out at three_ , is what he says.

Rick appears in the lunch line at ten forty-five. There’s a great swirl of green glow that disappears so quickly, Morty would be sure he’d imagined it if it weren’t for his grandfather inexplicably frowning down at him.

The guy’s really tall, huh? And sober. Sort of.

Kids are staring. Kids are stunned. Morty’s embarrassed. No one wants their grandpa showing up at school. Especially not if their grandpa walks casually out of a huge, nauseous hole in reality.

 _Morty_.

That’s the first time he almost dies. And he comes home hungry, besides.

(It was chicken nugget day, by the way. The nuggets are shaped like dinosaurs. Morty’s got a feeling he’s not gonna forgive Rick for that. The way today went, he’s got a feeling he’s probably not ever going to forgive Rick, ever, not for a lot of things, _ever_.)

A couple weeks later, Morty’s listening to his favorite song in bed. He’s looking at the pretty pictures of the girl at school on his laptop. A lot of kids keep their Instagrams private, but Jessica doesn’t. He likes to imagine it’s because she wants him to see it.

Rick walks in the open door, not that a closed one would stop him. His mouth is moving excitedly until he notices Morty’s earbuds. Morty goes to pull one out, but his grandfather beats him to it.

Rick stuffs the bud into his own ear and yanks the other out of Morty’s in the process. His face does something acrobatic and strikingly strange before souring.

 _Is this…? Jesus christ Morty,_ really? _Piece of shit album. Pale motherfucker should’ve never left the eighties, you realize this is from like, two thousand four, right? You— I’d respect you more if you were listening to_ Friday I’m In Love _. Fuck’s sake._

Morty feels sad and confused. He’s seen the music videos; if Rick likes it when this pale motherfucker sings, why does he also hate it when this pale motherfucker sings?

Is Rick the only one who can like things?

 _Is, is this who you are? Is this you_ in character? _Ugh— I, I don’t— if so, I don’t wanna know you_ out _of character. I_ _f you’re so hot for that little redhead_ —

God, how does Rick know?!

— _you might wanna start thinking about first impressions._

Rick says starting things with poetry is pandering.

Anyway, fuck Rick.

_Go, if you want to. I never tried to stop you._

But this, too, is true:

_You couldn’t ever love me more._

It’s happened a billion times before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song Morty is partial to is “The End Of The World” by The Cure.
> 
> You can find the video here: https://vimeo.com/56051952
> 
> The audio here: https://youtu.be/OWLECmUQvxU
> 
> And the lyrics here: https://genius.com/The-cure-the-end-of-the-world-lyrics
> 
> "Friday I'm In Love" is widely considered to be one of The Cure's worst songs.
> 
> When I realized I was predictably starting a fic with lyrics, I used Rick to shit on myself.
> 
> Also, hey! I’m new in town. I hope you’ll stick around!


End file.
